Stardust Page 28

  ‘Thank God that was all they had to do,’ Cecil sighed. ‘Imagine if the play had really been in trouble.’

  That was it, that was the blow in the solar plexus, the one to knock all the wind out of Jerome. Realizing suddenly the absurdity of the situation, he slowly collapsed backwards on to the sofa, both hands covering his face.

  ‘This is the beginning of the end, Cecil, you know that, don’t you?’ he whispered from behind his hands.

  ‘What is?’ Pippa asked. ‘Please, one of you tell me, what is going on? Why can’t Jerome get out of this ridiculous play?’

  ‘Who says it’s ridiculous!’ Jerome shouted at her, hands still to his face. ‘How do you know what sort of play it is, darling girl!’

  ‘Because if it was any good you’d have let me see it,’ Pippa retorted. ‘So come on, Cecil. Come clean. Why can’t you get Jerome out of it?’

  ‘I can get out of it, Pip,’ Jerome stage whispered, ‘if I agree to make Lady Anne.’

  ‘With Elizabeth Laurence.’

  ‘With – Elizabeth Laurence.’

  ‘So which is the lesser of the two evils?’

  ‘Elizabeth Laurence,’ Cecil said.

  ‘Go to hell!’ Jerome roared, before dashing back upstairs to shut himself in the bedroom.

  Cecil sighed, a long, exhausted sigh as he crushed his cigarette to death in an ashtray. Then he looked up at Pippa.

  ‘What can I say?’ he asked. ‘I did my best, Pip. I tried to talk him out of this play. But he wouldn’t listen. And you know Jerome.’

  Pippa thought that she did, but now she realized that she didn’t. She knew a bit of Jerome, the bit that showed just above the water.

  Oscar, however, was not in the slightest bit interested in Jerome, nor his career problems. Oscar was only interested in Jerome’s wife. He saw her every minute of his working day, and when his day was done he took her to bed with him, where she stayed locked away in his subconscious until it was time to let her free once more in the morning. Oscar literally lived and breathed Pippa. She was with him all of the time, wherever he went.

  Occasionally he actually saw her, like the Sunday he was invited to drinks, and one blank day when he went walking in Hyde Park quite deliberately at the same time as she did. He knew her habits well, but this was the only time he abused the knowledge and accidentally on purpose bumped into her on her walk. She was pleased to see him, and although Oscar was pleased she was pleased, he didn’t let it count for anything. He just fell into step alongside her and exchanged small talk. He told her nothing of what he was doing, except that he was writing again, and that it was going well, that is it had been going well until that morning, when he had come to a full stop, but that now he had taken a walk, he was sure that his inspiration would return. Oscar had every right to be sure, because his inspiration was at that moment walking alongside him.

  She said he must come round to lunch again, as soon as Jerome had solved his differences over the play, and Oscar agreed that it would be fun to do so, before wishing her and Bobby goodbye. On the pretext of doing up his shoelace, he watched her walk away, and then sat on a park bench until she had disappeared entirely from his sight, before hurrying back to his recently rented apartment to take off his coat, roll up his sleeves, break open a fresh pack of Luckies and continue their love affair.

  Except in Oscar’s version he wasn’t a writer, he was an unhappily married Oxford don, and Pippa wasn’t Pippa. She was a student of Philosophy, she was the girl that night on the train, and she was called Tatty Gray.

  9

  Contrary to expectations, not all but most, The Master of Kintyre was a runaway hit. Jerome had been absolutely right. All the play needed was a new girl juvenile, a new last act, a different set, and just like The Parade Gone By, a different leading actor. Before the play reached Richmond, Locke’s replaced Jerome with the increasingly popular Scottish actor Robert Maxwell-Law, who took the play by the scruff of the neck and turned it into an outrageous tour de force, to the delight of the West End audiences.

  At first, even though he had wanted out, Jerome sulked, attributing the success of the play not to Maxwell-Law but to the things he had advocated, namely the rewriting and the recasting of the girl. Pippa paid the daily tirades little heed, as she knew that once Jerome was working again, albeit back in harness with Elizabeth Laurence, he would forget all about The Master of Kintyre and concentrate on the matters in hand. For the moment, however, he could not leave it alone, until Pippa, in an effort to kill or cure, dragged him along to see it.

  ‘Absurd,’ was Jerome’s first reaction. ‘Way over the top. I mean what is the superlative for Larger Than Life? The whole thing was surreal! It bears no resemblance to the way I saw it!’

  ‘You could never have played that part, Jerome,’ Pippa had told him, taking his arm as they walked back along Piccadilly. ‘And you know it.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ he had retorted, before repeating the assertion but with considerably less conviction. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘What made you think that you could?’

  It had all come out as they walked all the way home, from Shaftesbury Avenue back to Kensington. Jerome had tried to refuse point blank to do Lady Anne with Elizabeth, but there was no way he could because of the terms of his contract with Boska. Boska had argued as always that the more films Jerome made with Elizabeth, the greater would be the stardom he achieved, and as a consequence, the better would be his position when it came to negotiating solo work. Finally Jerome had been forced to listen, even though he went down still arguing the toss.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if they were films like The Country Girl, On The Waterfront or Member of the Wedding,’ he said. ‘But they’re not. They’re insipid melodramas, like Time Will Tell, The Long Farewell, Above Us The Stars, or historical garbage like Lady Anne.’

  ‘It still doesn’t explain how you got offered, and how you came to accept The Master of Kintyre,’ Pippa persisted, as they walked round Hyde Park Corner.

  It had been a bolt out of the blue. One day Cecil had called him and said that all concerned had come to respect his point of view, and that Locke’s had just been sent a play for which they thought Jerome would be perfect. Actually, Jerome confessed to Pippa, his very own first impression of the piece was that he was entirely wrong, and that Maxwell-Law was the only actor who could possibly play the part. So how had he been persuaded? Very easily. Maxwell-Law was the obvious casting, they had told him, and as a consequence the play would suffer. It would be turned into yet another Maxwell-Law tour de force, which while undoubtedly entertaining, would certainly ruin the play as written. Much more interesting, surely, to cast against type, not to go for the cliché, but for the unexpected. Whoever would have thought that Marlon Brando could play Mark Antony? But it had been proved he could, hadn’t it? So why not cast Jerome Didier against type? After all, surely not every Scottish Laird had to look like Robert Maxwell-Law?

  ‘I see,’ Pippa said. ‘Well, of course. With that sort of argument, anyone could be persuaded. Particularly by Cecil.’

  ‘Any actor can be persuaded.’

  Jerome took Pippa’s hand to lead her across the road and on up Knightsbridge towards the Albert Hall. It had taken Pippa to draw his attention to the salient point, as usual. It was Cecil who had persuaded him, and he was curious to know why. But that could wait, because the nightmare was behind him now.

  ‘So what do you really feel now?’ she asked. ‘Now you’ve seen the play?’

  Jerome smiled at her and put his arm round her slender waist now they were safely back on the pavement.

  ‘I’m very glad you didn’t see me in it,’ he replied. ‘You’d have left me.’

  Pippa did see him in Lady Anne. It seemed most of England did. Wherever they went now, Jerome was recognized, and hunted for his autograph. They even found out where he lived, and soon there were small groups of fans gathered daily outside the mews house, waiting for a glimpse of their new idol.

  They mo
ved, of course, although neither wanted to do so. The mews was their first home, and they both loved it dearly. They called it The Snowflake, since because it was all painted white inside, and furnished with white rugs and carpets, bedspreads and sofas, Pippa said it was like living inside a snowfall, except that it was so snug and so warm. Their new home was very different, a large and very glamorous apartment on the first and second floors of a Regency house in Park Lane. It had wrought-iron balconies outside the windows which overlooked the park, a white marbled bathroom, and a dining room hung with a huge crystal chandelier.

  ‘I’m not sure I can live here,’ Pippa said, when they first saw it. ‘It’s like a stage set.’

  ‘All the world is a stage, remember, Pip,’ Jerome said, throwing open the drawing-room windows and stepping out on to the balcony.

  ‘It just doesn’t seem to be us, Jerome.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  Jerome was amazed, and did his very best to look it.

  ‘You don’t like this place, Mrs Didier?’

  ‘I love it, Jerome!’ Pippa laughed. ‘It’s just – what’s the word? It’s just such a leap!’

  It was a leap, and at first far too big a one for Pippa. Jerome made the transition easily, and took to their new life style as if he had been waiting for it, as if he had been expecting it to happen any moment, but Pippa missed their little snow house, she missed its warmth, its intimacy and its simplicity. Now and very suddenly there was champagne in the refrigerator, there was a uniformed housemaid, there was a secretary, a new car, paintings on the walls, expensive furniture, new clothes, white telephones, and within weeks nothing left from the snow house whatsoever, not even their marriage bed.

  ‘You’re worried we can’t afford all this,’ Jerome said to Pippa as men from Harrods positioned yet more reproduction antique furniture around the drawing room. ‘Well don’t.’ He kissed Pippa, burying his face in the back of her hair as he stood behind her. ‘Don’t worry about anything, Pip,’ he whispered. ‘Because we can afford this six times over.’

  But it wasn’t the expense that worried Pippa. It was the swiftness of the transformation. One minute there had been the three of them, Jerome, Bobby and her, living modestly, peacefully and privately in the mews. Now there were seemingly thirty-three of them, living sumptuously, noisily and publicly in a luxury Park Lane apartment, a place where it seemed the telephone never stopped ringing, and the front door was forever open.

  Everyone wanted to see Jerome and Jerome was happy to see everyone at home. Each and every day of the week, Sundays included, more and more and yet more strangers passed through the apartment, their numbers increasing by the week, passing Pippa by on their way to and from seeing Jerome, passing her by with scarcely a second glance, photographers, reporters, columnists, producers, directors, screenwriters, tailors, hairdressers, studio executives, publicists, manicurists, stockbrokers, insurance salesmen, doctors, throat specialists, masseurs and therapists of every size and description. All came and went, drilled into order by Miss Toothe, Jerome’s awesomely efficient secretary, who made sure that none of the appointed, unless granted a special dispensation, stayed a minute longer than their appointments allowed.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Pippa said, as she saw each day turning into the day before.

  ‘Neither can I,’ Jerome agreed, as his tailor fitted him for his newest suit. ‘It’s like a play within a play.’

  ‘Or like a fairy story,’ Pippa offered, collecting her coat and Bobby’s lead.

  ‘Or like a fairy story,’ Jerome smiled, raising an arm for the tailor.

  ‘By Grimm,’ Pippa concluded, leaving for her walk.

  Nowadays she did her best to leave for hers and Bobby’s walk before given her orders to do so by Miss Toothe. Bobby had become a nuisance, at least a nuisance according to Miss Toothe, barking at every new visitor, jumping up on everyone’s legs, attacking trouser turn-ups, and laddering pair after pair of nylon stockings. At first as a precaution he was locked away in the kitchen with the maid, but all he did in there was howl or try and tear down the door at the sound of anyone’s voice, so if Pippa didn’t get him out of the apartment before the daily invasion began, Miss Toothe would despatch him by taxi in the charge of the maid to be locked away in Harrods’ kennels until close of play.

  It was Oscar who came to the rescue.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ he said to her one day when they bumped into each other again in the park, and Pippa had explained Bobby’s predicament. ‘My own apartment’s only a couple of blocks away, over there in Cumberland Place. So when you have one of those helluva-days on, drop the little fellow off with me.’

  Since the very next day looked like being one of Oscar’s helluva-days, Pippa took him at his word, and dropped Bobby round with him first thing in the morning. Oscar was at his desk when she called, so Pippa made her excuses and left, without accepting Oscar’s offer of coffee.

  ‘He’s had a good walk!’ she called back up the stairs as she hurried downwards. ‘He’ll probably sleep until I collect him!’

  ‘Any idea when?’ Oscar called back. ‘Not that it matters!’

  ‘Four o’clock all right?’

  ‘Four o’clock is just fine.’

  After she was gone, even though she hadn’t stayed more than a minute, two at the most, Oscar lost his thread, and could only sit and stare at one blank sheet of paper after another.

  ‘Goddamit, Robert,’ he said to the dog who was busy trying to pull the valance off the sofa. ‘Your mistress is meant to inspire me, not dumbfound me.’

  Unable to settle back to work, Oscar taught Bobby how to play Crumples. This entailed teaching the dog to try and intercept a sheet of screwed up typing paper before it landed where Oscar was aiming it, namely in the waste basket at the far end of the room. But Bobby was not only a born retriever, he was a quick study, and it was a no-contest. Oscar couldn’t get a crumple past him whatever tactic he adopted. By half-past eleven, Oscar called time and logged up the final tally on his blackboard.

  ‘Robert thirty-one,’ he wrote. ‘O. Greene nil.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you’re not happy,’ Jerome said, as they dressed for dinner one evening.

  ‘I am happy,’ Pippa replied. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘It’s not going to go on like this, Pip, I promise.’ He glanced at her in the mirror as he finished perfecting the bow in his tie. ‘This will all die down. This is just in the wake of Lady Anne.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, Jerome,’ Pippa said, stepping into her red velvet dress.

  ‘You’re not wearing that again, are you?’

  ‘It won’t die down, because you have to realize that whether you like it or not, and, of course, you like it, because that’s why you’re an actor.’ Pippa turned her back round to him to be zipped up. ‘You’re a star, Jerome. In a way, this is just a foretaste.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ Jerome laughed. ‘I’m just the flavour of the month! Next month it will be somebody else! Somebody new! They’re soon going to bore of me, don’t you worry, darling girl! And haven’t you really got anything else to wear?’

  ‘What’s wrong with this dress? You like this dress. At least you said you did.’

  ‘I love that dress, Pip. I adore it! But you wear it all the time!’

  ‘No I don’t. I only wear it in the evening. And then only when we’re going out.’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean, smarty-pants.’ Jerome grabbed Pippa as she turned to walk past him. He put his arms round her and looked into her eyes from very near.

  ‘I want you to have everything you want, Pip, everything you need.’

  ‘I have everything I want, Jerome. At the moment that is. And I have more than my needs.’ She kissed him, and then brushed the light lipstick mark away with the tip of one finger. ‘What I think you mean is you want me to have more clothes, which isn’t something I want. It’s something you want.’

  ‘No, Pip, that
just isn’t so,’ Jerome replied, knowing that it was. ‘It’s just typical of you. You’re just simply not in the least acquisitive. Yes. Yes I want you to have more clothes, wonderful clothes, gorgeous clothes. But I want them for you. Because I want you – to have them.’

  Jerome gave her carte blanche to choose what she liked, within a very generous budget. She was instructed to buy outfits for the day as well as the evening, hats, shoes and even lingerie.

  ‘We can’t have any more of this Orphan Annie look,’ he confided. ‘So for God’s sake go out and buy clothes that look the part. That will look the part at all these premières that are coming up, and these receptions, let alone all these dinners!’ Jerome threw his engagement diary back on the desk and walked to one of the windows overlooking the park, hands sunk deep in his tailor-made slacks. ‘It’s very sweet, but we can’t have any more of this Little Orphan Annie nonsense.’

  At that moment the drawing-room door opened and Bobby bounded in, followed by his mistress.

  ‘Ah, there you are, darling girl,’ Jerome said on the turn, picking up Bobby as he did so. ‘Elizabeth’s been waiting for you.’

  Elizabeth wanted to take Pippa shopping to all the salons where Elizabeth did her own shopping, but Pippa refused. So Elizabeth reclosed the door of the taxi which had transported them to the environs of Bond Street and ordering the driver to wait, shut the intercommunicating window and turned to her companion.

  ‘Pippa darling,’ she sighed, ‘I think it’s time you learned the facts of life. As you know, your husband is now nationally famous, and fast on his way to being internationally famous. Now you may like this, darling, or you may not, whichever the case may be. For reasons best known to yourself you might want to keep out of the limelight and play little Miss Mousey. Well that would be fine, darling, if that was all right by Jerome, but you see it isn’t.’ Elizabeth smiled and put a hand on one of Pippa’s. ‘It isn’t, darling, because Jerome loves you, darling,’ she continued, ‘and he wants to share all these wonderful things which are happening to him with you. But he can’t do that, you see? Can he? If you’re going to be Little Miss Stay-At-Home, or if when you do choose to go out every now and then you’re always seen in the same dreary old thing. It doesn’t look good, sweetheart, it looks a little funny. Do you see?’ Elizabeth smiled her sweetest smile and squeezed Pippa’s hand before continuing. ‘Everyone looks at the woman, to see how well the man’s doing. And if you’re wearing last century’s boring old velvet dress, they’re all going to think what is this? This wonderful, handsome, dashing star that we all love – this is the best he can do? Allow his wife out in the same old frock, darling? They’ll begin to suspect him of hiring his dinner jacket! It’s all to do with what these clever old publicity people call image, so they tell me. And like it or lump it, one’s better half is exactly that. Part of one’s image. You’re a pretty girl, darling.’ Elizabeth sat back to take a better look at Pippa, who was still sitting stone-faced beside her. ‘No, you are,’ she said, as if she might almost have been wrong first time. Then she leaned over to Pippa and brushed her fringe of hair aside from her eyes. ‘You have lovely eyes, a good figure, but we’ll have to do something with this wonderful mop of hair, won’t we! Gerard will know exactly what to do, don’t worry. In fact I think that’s where we’ll go first.’